My son is going to flunk 1st grade

[AGDee]

Actually, the testing I'm talking about is done by a psychologist, not a medical doctor and it involves doing puzzles, math, answering questions verbally. Typically, if a child is having emotional reactions to a stressful situation, they would perform poorly in all areas of education, not just in reading. Wendi said that he is doing well in math and that his verbal skills are good, he is just having trouble with reading. I agree that ADHD is WAY overdiagnosed, but that isn't what I'm talking about here. We all have things that we don't do well. I can't carry a tune in a bucket. My eye/hand coordination isn't very good so I'm not good at things like ping pong, tennis or hitting a baseball. Lucky for me, these aren't necessary life skills so I don't bother doing anything about it. With the right activities and some adaptations, I may be able to do them. When the skill that someone has trouble with is reading, it will affect their whole lives. Children are perceptive and realize that other kids are doing things that they can't do, which can also cause a lot of stress. All I was suggesting is that they do the tests to find out if there is a learning disability. It could also just be that he's really good at math and is focusing on that and not putting his efforts toward learning to read because it's boring or something. It won't hurt to find out though. I'm not talking about medicating the child or doing invasive medical tests. I'm talking about IQ testing combined with achievement tests. When there are abnormally large differences between IQ subtests or a big difference between IQ and achievement, they can use that information to figure out how to help him learn to read. If he is with his class developmentally in every other way, holding him back may not be the best idea. He could be able to stay with his class and just get some extra help on the side from the special ed teacher. When kids need help with speech, they go to the speech pathologist. If they need help with reading, they might need to go to the special ed teacher for a little time each week.

Dee